The Time Masters

by Wilson Tucker

  They were soft, dark brown eyes he noticed, almost the colour of her smoothly brushed hair. Beside her, Dikty had turned his head to sniff curiously. The girl hesitated there but a second longer and then advanced along the walk, alone. Nash was sure that Dikty had whispered to her, had sent her away from him. She passed by the silent trio and continued up the street.

  Nash smiled after her.

  That would be Dikty’s secretary, Shirley Hoffman. Shirley Hoffman was wearing a new perfume. Dikty had noted it and absently turned to sample the scent. Shirley Hoffman had recognized him standing there with the plain-clothes men and he had recognized her. She had changed perfumes but she wouldn’t be able to change her voice.

  Shirley Hoffman had been easy to find again.

  VII.

  The hotels were blanks.

  The police had long since covered them all searching for Carolyn Hodgkins, and perhaps Dikty had visited them as well. Even a drastic change in the colouring of her hair as well as a change in name would not have concealed her, for the police would have examined the registers for those days immediately following her disappearance, would have carefully scrutinized each newcomer. And she could not alter the colour of her eyes. The police would have likewise visited the bus and railway stations with her description, with the picture taken from the dressertop. Despite that, there remained the definite possibility she had slipped out of town without being seen. Carolyn Hodgkins was no bungling amateur.

  Nash clasped his fingers beneath his chin, propped his elbows on the desk and considered her problem.

  There were not too many places she could go that would be profitable to her; only Oak Ridge, Hanford, perhaps Brookhaven and the Savannah River. That last brought a frown of speculation. Savannah River was processing heavy water. Carolyn Hodgkins might well go there. Or consider Los Alamos; Los Alamos might serve if she could sufficiently camouflage her real intentions, could present an acceptable reason for moving there. She just might meet another technician there who would serve her purpose, but her chances of marrying him were practically nil. Hodgkins’s widow was a marked woman now, marked because she was a widow. Let even the suggestion of marriage be broached in the proper circles and Los Alamos would trace the wife-to-be back through Oak Ridge and Knoxville all the way to that other marriage before the war—that romantic meeting in the public library. She wouldn’t want that, couldn’t afford that. So Carolyn would not suggest marriage. The technician would be entertained without it.

  Lucky fellow, he would think. Nash smiled faintly. Carolyn had her points.

  And she was interested in the same object as he, but with a vastly different end in view. In all likelihood that object would be fired from White Sands or perhaps Frenchman’s Flats; it and similar objects would go pounding up into the sky, some to fall back failures, some to vanish forever beyond sight and sound. Those three experimental craft that had already done so were but pilots to the pilots—the real pilots were yet to come, powered with the nuclear magic Hodgkins had almost given his sanity for, that space-happy young men would undoubtedly give their lives for. And hard on the heels of those genuine pilot models would be the ship Carolyn waited for. There was even the remote possibility that one of the early pilot ships would serve her purpose. Already, he knew, mice and monkeys and even a goat had been thrown into space at White Sands. Some human would go soon. That could be the ship Carolyn waited for. Risky—but she was now at that point where she was more than willing to run risks. She didn’t want to die.

  And that was the fine thread of distinction between Carolyn and himself. She was determined to live, to return from whence she came. But he had decided to accept death on earth as it would come to him.

  It wasn’t likely then that she had gone to Hanford or Brookhaven. Those particular places were too much out of the way, too far off the mainstream of investigation and experimentation. Sometime during her marriage to Gregg Hodgkins she had known that Oak Ridge was the prime mover of those ships-to-come, and she had clung to him and to the place as long as she dared. She had eagerly helped whenever and wherever possible, hastening the day. Hadn’t Hodgkins admitted to something like it? Yes—something to the effect that she would drop hints in casual conversation and he reassigned the values to apply them to the problem at hand. That had been it. She was no technician or even a mechanic in her own right, but she knew enough to serve as a guidepost. It may have been that Carolyn had known her husband’s fount of intelligence and reasoning powers far better than he, had plumbed and brought to the surface of his mind those answers he wouldn’t otherwise have discovered for a longer time. She was impatient, desperate for the ship and the power.

  That was the most likely answer, for Carolyn had never been technically minded. She couldn’t have sparked or built Hodgkins’s nuclear thrust herself, couldn’t so much as design a vessel to contain it. So she had primed him from his own well of knowledge, hurrying him on. What would the front-office boys at Oak Ridge have thought of that?

  Suddenly, Nash wondered just how many different projects Hodgkins had worked on during his career?

  Had he a finger in fashioning the bomb itself—diligently pushed on by his wife? Very possible. She knew only too well that no decent durable ship could go hurtling into the vacuous sky without nuclear energy behind it—the liquid fuels simply weren’t enough. And to obtain energy of that type for vehicles of that kind, the military demand had to come first. First had to come the explosive in destructive, warlike forms—any primitive government would insist on that. Next would come the by-products of medicine and manufacturing. And finally, if there existed an outside threat, would come the vehicles capable of conquering space. That was the pattern of human thinking and Carolyn was aware of it.

  Powder rockets were confined to the toys, to early warfare, to amateur experimentation; the best of the powders couldn’t propel a ship beyond ten thousand feet per second, and the fuel was burned in a breath. The various liquid combinations were only a little better, a bolsterer of hopes: kerosene and oxygen, gasoline, acetylene, even hydrogen and oxygen were but toddling steps, each step pushing the other awkwardly up to the frontier. But they were not able to bring the ship back again. The lost Corporal had used the last liquid refinement; those others had used something else. Nuclear energy was the only answer, and Carolyn knew it. So Carolyn had hastened the day.

  It followed that Carolyn would continue to haunt Oak Ridge or Los Alamos, awaiting the final day. With side trips to Savannah River, perhaps.

  He decided to concentrate on Knoxville as the most likely place; let someone else search Los Alamos, someone with proper entry and contact, someone like Dikty or his supervisor.

  If she remained here she would need housing; the hotels would be closed to her for purposes of secrecy after her husband’s death—she would realize that. Likewise she would know—or guess—that someone would eventually get around to checking the real estate offices, searching for an apartment or house she may have rented after leaving that one hotel. And in Knoxville, apartments or houses weren’t picked up in a day. What was it her husband had said? She began mentally packing and preparing to leave him several weeks prior to the date she actually walked out. Not only mentally packing, Nash decided. She had started moving, not a difficult thing to do when all she wanted or took were some of the contents of her bedroom.

  Her closet space was empty, the vanity drawers empty. All the possessions she took with her could be packed into a trunk, and perhaps a suitcase on the side. And she had thoughtfully secured a place to move to long before the day she deserted her husband, so many months before that a routine check today would reveal nothing suspicious. Sudden thought: to the home of that hypothetical third party?

  To move that trunk she would have hired a taxi or a small delivery truck. She would avoid the risk of having a third party call for her, having him seen by neighbours. If that third party existed, both he and Carolyn would go to the extreme to conceal his existence.

  Nash unlock
ed his fingers, stood up, stretched.

  The afternoon hour was growing late and dusk would not be long in coming. A few short hours ago Hodgkins had made his last public appearance; since the services Nash had done nothing but lounge in his office, brooding. Now he put on his coat, closed the window, tested the door latch with his thumb and stepped out into the corridor.

  Knoxville’s streets were full with homebound crowds.

  Gilbert Nash selected a near-by restaurant, preferring to eat down-town because he thought it too early to go home, too early to separate himself from the noisy company of people. After a short wait in the closely packed place, he was given a small booth in the back, and ordered a beer to pass the time until the meal would be ready. Idly, he scanned the people surging about the room.

  Shirley Hoffman entered the door, made a small face when she discovered the waiting line and hopelessly searched for a vacant table. She saw Nash a moment later and her eyes widened involuntarily, as they had done earlier that afternoon. She made a tentative move as if to leave.

  Nash was on his feet in an instant, inviting her to join him with a gesture and a welcoming smile. She stepped out of the line, paused to express doubt with a frown, and then slowly threaded her way among the tables to where he waited. Her face still wore a hint of indecision.

  His smile dissolved into a wide grin. “If it’s that bad, go away. I’ll withdraw the invitation.”

  “No, please.” She apologised and slid into the seat opposite him. “Really, it isn’t what you must be thinking at all. But—”

  “But what? Out with it.”

  “You must think I followed you here. I did catch a glimpse of you on the street a moment ago, but I didn’t follow you. I often eat here.”

  “Glad to know it,” Nash assured her, “and I’ll come back again.” He continued to grin across the table at her, to put her at ease. “But tell me just one thing and I’ll answer your doubts. You recognized me this afternoon?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so. I’m pleased to meet you. My name is Gilbert Nash and yours is Shirley Hoffman.”

  “How did you . . .?” She stopped and fought away a blush of confusion, her eyes avoiding his. “I suppose it is rather silly to pretend we don’t know each other.”

  “Is, yes. And I like the sound of your voice.”

  Her glance flew back to his, startled and wondering.

  Nash was still grinning almost laughing at her. “Dikty betrayed you, there in the doorway. He didn’t recognize the new perfume you’re wearing. I like it though.” He waited a moment to reassure her. “I told you I’d find you again.”

  Her answering words rushed out hotly. “And now I suppose you’re going to ask me what I was doing there!”

  “No—I’m not. I know we were both there for the same reason: information. And I know that we both gained the same amount: nothing. You came away with just one thing I did not, and vice versa.”

  She waited for him to continue, not speaking.

  He flicked a casual finger at her purse on the table. “You have a key. I have a hairpin.” And then suddenly he grinned again. “But I knew you didn’t have a gun last night. I only pretended you had one.”

  Hoffman bit her lip, cautiously watching him, and then quickly laughed. “So did I.”

  The waitress stopped at their table.

  “I’m having a steak—want a beer while you’re waiting J”

  “Yes to both,” she answered. “Gilbert Nash, you’re a most serious man. I’ve never met anyone quite like you.”

  “That,” he replied dryly, “is the opening gambit to a hundred thousand flatteries, coming from anyone else I’d call it a hundred thousand and one. But you, you can’t help yourself. Dikty’s job rubs off on you.”

  “Oh, now, I didn’t intend—”

  “I know you didn’t, so don’t apologize. And I don’t mind in the least. Dikty and I have been keeping our weather eyes on each other for a long time. Amusing, eh?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said sincerely, “but we may as well be frank about this, don’t you think?”

  “Do, yes. There’s no point at all in going along and pretending that he isn’t watching me, every move I make. He’ll have a report on this meal before morning.” Nash chuckled. “But I don’t believe he could sit down with me like this and enjoy dinner; he’s too much the formal, hidebound Sherlock.” He glanced across the table at her, amusement in tone and gesture. “I think you can.”

  “I think so, too. And how are you, Mr. Nash?”

  “Splendid, Miss Hoffman.”

  “You sent me to the library this morning.”

  “I did? That’s curious—it must have been something I said. Probably last night.”

  She nodded. “It was. You were speaking of hairpins. You said, you may fashion it into the horns of a bull and hold it over a flame. I wondered what you meant by that.”

  “Yes, I remember it now. That was in the nature of a spark. If you had been who I first thought you were, last night, that would have started a fire.”

  “Really?” She stared at him with round curious eyes. “You must have been expecting Mrs. Hodgkins?”

  He nodded and sipped at the beer.

  “How would that have started a fire? I mean—what does it mean? I couldn’t find a thing at the library to offer a hint; I must have driven the poor librarian crazy. We searched the black magic and voodoo shelves from one end to the other. You see, I thought you might be a male witch. But there was nothing concerning the horns of a bull.” Nash laughed gaily, causing some of the nearer diners to turn and look. “Wrong department of research. Next time try archeology—and in particular the Middle East and the Mediterranean. Bulls were employed as sacrifices, as ornaments, and as strange partners in erotic dances in ancient Crete; the customs and habits occasionally spilled over into the surrounding states.” He whooped again. “Male witch!”

  “And you were there I” she retorted flippantly.

  “I’ve been there,” Nash answered.

  “Oh? Teacher, archeologist?”

  “Let’s say as a student, an ambulant armchair archeologist, but I did go over the ground. Never had the opportunity to actually participate in the digging, but I would have liked to. One of my many hobbies—I enjoy studying anything having to do with people. I have a fair-sized collection of books on the subject and some few artifacts; I enjoy comparing the volumes against each other, pairing off the learned scholars in opinionated battle. Consider those Cretan bulls for example. One authority would have us believe they were sacrifices to a god and that youths would perform ritual dances around them as they were led away—a sort of farewell party. But another scholar will stoutly maintain that the youths were sacrifices to the bull—they were dancing and cavorting about before meeting their deaths. Can you imagine cavorting with joy at your own funeral? But still another will say it was nothing more than an acrobatic act, a skilled performance for an audience, similar to modern bullfighting.

  “One can’t blame these writers too much—they have so little to go on. This particular incident is based on a few paintings and carved rings uncovered at the sites. And modem man, if you need reminding, is apt to interpret things and events according to modern reasoning and logic, still believing he is following the logic of antiquity.”

  “But which is right?” Hoffman asked curiously.

  “None, really. At least in ancient Crete. Our scholars readily realized that the dancers were of both sexes, and always young and fair. But our scholars are cursed with modern minds. They weren’t so quick to realize—or at least admit—that the affairs were purely erotic in nature. Performed for an audience. That’s rather foreign to present-day thinking. So the archeologists lean to the sacrificial explanation, although I’ll admit their thinking is coloured by other finds. In later times the dances spilled over into the other Aegean islands and degenerated into brawls and senseless murder.” He caught her sudden expression. “You think my choice of words poor,
or is it my sense of values? You could be right, whichever; I don’t always manage to keep pace with changing values. But I do think the original purpose of the rites were lofty, compared to the blood lusts that followed. The morals of one age are not those of the next.”

  She was silent, considering all that he had said while the waitress prepared the table. She hoped her thoughts weren’t too apparent on her face. When they were alone again she closed one eye and fixed him with a semi-serious glance. “You sound as though you were there.”

  “A healthy imagination,” he answered dryly, “plus an undying curiosity about all things human from the time your Paleolithic ancestors first began piling one stone atop another to build a wall, up to and including the ships that leap into the sky—yesterday, today and tomorrow. I want to know where man came from, what he has been doing all these years, and where he is going. Especially where he is going.”

  “My favourite grandmother,” she interposed, “used to say we were going to hell in a bucket.”

  “In one language or another, they’ve said that for five thousand years. Don’t believe it.”

  “I know a man,” she copied his dry tone, “who is interested in your interests.”

  “Good! Send him around someday and we’ll have a first-rate bull session—no pun intended. I’ll do my best to amuse him. Does he have an interest in archeology? Is he a religious man? Maybe he’d like to hear about the religious uproar in Europe when an indiscreet Englishman found evidence of a tremendous deluge.”

  “I rather doubt it,” Hoffman shook her head, the brown hair swirling. “His interests run along other lines. But I’ll listen.”

  “You can’t very well help yourself!” Nash plunked down the beef bottle on the tabletop. “The steaks aren’t ready and you’re trapped. More beer? You don’t mind if I do? Thanks. Well . . . our Englishman was evacuating in Mesopotamia, delving into Assyrian and Babylonian history for traces of a still earlier people who had handed down to them a form of writing. Did you know that the source of the world’s first form of writing is still unknown?”